The Right Audience

I have been working on Ashokan Farewell for a couple of weeks--first memorizing it, then making it sound beautiful, plaintive, mournful.

Memory seemed easy at first (I had already memorized in on the fiddle), but playing it with the fiddle group threw me off. Some of the fiddlers put a lot of flourishes in it. I like the flourishes, but haven't added them yet.

So, I finally memorized it, played it with intense emotion, pouring my heart and soul into. "Da da deee, da da da da, da da daaaa da da da da daa, da da da da da da da deeee, da da deeee. And so on.

I recorded my masterpiece and played it back. It sounded like clunk-clunk-clunk, clunk-clunk-clunk-clunk..... and so on. No emotion, and terrible intonation. Very, very discouraging. And why do I hear it so differently when I play it?

So, I've collected a couple of recordings of Ashokan Farewell: Jay Unger's emotional rendition on violin, from You Tube, and the Adagio Trio's version on cello, flute, and harp.

I was playing the Adagio Trio's version (in which the cello part is somewhat clunkier than Unger's version), when my husband called. He heard the recording in the background and actually thought it was me playing. When he came home later, I was playing Ashokan on the fiddle, and he said he thought it was a recording. What a guy!! I couldn't ask for a more appreciative audience.